RMS Titanic - Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage

Both the Olympic and the Titanic registered Liverpool as their home port. The offices of the White Star Line as well as Cunard were in Liverpool and up until the introduction of the Olympic most British oceanliners for both Cunard and White Star, such as the Lusitania and Mauretania, sailed out of Liverpool followed by a port of call in Ireland. However, the Olympic class liners were to sail out of the port of Southampton on England's southern coast. Southampton had many advantages to Liverpool, the first being its closer proximity to London. In addition Southampton, being on England's southern coast, allowed ships to easily cross the English Channel and make a port of call in northern France, usually at the port of Cherbourg. This allowed British ships to pick up clientele from continental Europe before recrossing the channel and picking up passengers in southern Ireland. The Southampton-Cherbourg-New York run would become so popular that most British oceanliners began using the port after World War I. Though out of respect for Liverpool ships would continue to be registered there, a practice that would last through the early 1960s. The RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 would be one of the first ships to be registered in Southampton when introduced into service by Cunard in 1969.

Titanic's maiden voyage was intended to be the first of many cross-Atlantic journeys between Southampton in England, Cherbourg in France, Queenstown in Ireland and New York in the United States, returning via Plymouth in England on the eastbound leg. The White Star Line intended to operate three ships on that route: Titanic, Olympic and the smaller RMS Oceanic. Each would sail once every three weeks from Southampton and New York, usually leaving at noon each Wednesday from Southampton and each Saturday from New York, thus enabling the White Star Line to offer weekly sailings in each direction. Special trains were scheduled from London and Paris to convey passengers to Southampton and Cherbourg respectively. The deep-water dock at Southampton, then known as the "White Star Dock" had been specially constructed to accommodate the new Olympic-class liners, and had opened in 1911.